My College Comfort Cuisine

People rarely put together in one sentence words like "college" and "cuisine". Crazy snacks – yes, wham-bam homemade pizzas – probably, but not your fork-and-knife decent meals. I realize that my experience was rather unique, but college was the time when I actually learned to cook. It was also time when I learned to eat, for that matter.

I experienced food as a ritual, love, and care. I understood back then that food is more than just a fuel for our bodies. It can be life's way to pet you on the head and say "there, there". I learned to eat mindfully and enjoy my meals as experience.

I was lucky to reside with girls with a passion for healthy and delicious homemade food. Thanks to them, I now know at least four decent recipes to entertain my guests.
 

Pomidorowa by Magda

Magda was an exchange student from Krakow, who only spend a semester with me. She is also a person responsible for making me addicted to tomato soup. That is what "pomidorowa" actually means – a "tomato soup". If you try to research Polish cuisine, you will find all kinds of specialties – bigos, flaki, zurek, pierogi. Pomidorowa rarely makes the list, but it's one of the most common first courses that you will find in any restaurant or diner all over Poland. According to Magda, anyway.

So, when we shared the room in the dorm, she cooked it quite often and I fell in love with the recipe. It is actually the most flexible one that I know of. Depending on our budget and time available, it could be as simple as: take a bouillon cube and some tomato concentrate, add water, enjoy. Or as sophisticated as: go to a farmer's market, find obscure ingredients you've never heard of before, take your wand and your grandma's book of spells, spend two days in the kitchen – and enjoy the process rather than the result. Tomatoes originated in America, but while we still considered them poisonous, in Europe, they have worked magic with them.

Years after, I use a recipe that we worked together, something in between – moderately complicated without compromising the deliciousness. Until now, this is my favorite pick-me-up dish. Maybe because tomatoes are a great source of a nutrient that actually stops the buildup of compounds linked to depression. Or maybe it's because each time I cook it, the smell of pomidorowa conjures the times with Magda, and she was the most radiant and optimistic person I have ever met.

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Kidney pie by Anna

Anna was from Canada. I would love to debunk a couple of stereotypes here, but I honestly cannot. She was one of the nicest people I've known to date and she knew a lot of funny stories that somehow involved snowbanks and flurries. We only spent a year sharing a room and then she transferred, but she became like a sister to me. She had this soft and gentle kind of strength about her that paired with frankness make people like her the salt of the earth. She also made the first kidney pie I dared to try. Kidneys did not use to sound particularly appealing to me. Now I am a fan.

We used to hang around the kitchen, waiting for it to be ready, tantalized by the mouthwatering aroma from the oven. It was an electric oven, so it took longer to cook. It also was on the other floor – our floor's kitchen had no oven because someone from a previous year apparently tried to turn it into... I don't know, maybe it was supposed to be a hadron collider. Anyway, it was knocked out of order for good, so we had to run up and down the stairs to get all the ingredients and kitchenware we needed. It was totally worth it.

I never attempted to make it again on my own, but I sometimes order it when I need cheering up because it will always be Anna's special for me. Anna used to cheer me up with it. Whenever I was crying my eyes out because a long-distant relationship with my boyfriend seemed to fall apart. She was there for me when I was out of my head with anxiety before the exams, always ready to offer desperate solutions, half-jokingly, half in earnest. Favorite roommate. After all this time. Always.

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Pasta by Angela

Angela was from California, but head over heels in love with the Mediterranean stuff. She used to cook Italian dishes while listening to bands like Beirut who played Balkan folk. It was her dream to bask someday in the Mediterranean sun on a hot sand somewhere between a vineyard and an olive grove. This dream lived in her cooking. She also insisted on wine being added into some of her specialties, although I thought that wine's place is in the stemware – not in the saucepan.

It seemed to me that the rays of sunlight and the smell of thyme followed her wherever she went. She was tanned all year round, easy-going, always ready to party. There was, however, one point on which she was adamant and almost vicious. Kinds of pasta and sauces.

She taught me never to serve spaghetti with Bolognese because Bolognese goes only with thicker kinds of pasta. That was quite an impressive discovery for me back then. As it turned out, many sauces had specific kinds of pasta to go with and vice versa. Penne with creamy cheese, farfalle with mushrooms, and so on. I do not know if they are as strict about this in Italy as Angela was. I know one thing for sure – her seemingly easy recipes were something else. I could not reproduce them, no matter how I tried.

The internet is full of step-by-step guides with pictures, but I always end up with something that is okay but lacks that special zest that only Angela could add. Still, I always go for Mediterranean cuisine if an escapist in me needs a fakecation.

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Hot dish by Gwen

Gwen was independent, charismatic and a bit bossy. She was also into fitness. You would not expect someone like her to put on an apron and a pair of kitchen mittens, dive into the oven and emerge with a casserole and a wide proud smile – a model housewife from a 50s TV show. Yet sometimes she would.

She was from Minneapolis, so she insisted on calling it a "hot dish", but in essence, it was a casserole (don't tell her I said that). This was her favorite comfort food, and whenever she felt down, she was compelled to cook it for everyone, instead of hogging a bucket of ice-cream as many girls would (including yours truly). This generosity and willingness to share in order to feel better added something maternal to her character. We loved it – all of us. We nicknamed her Gwonica (Gwen+Monica, as in F.R.I.E.N.D.S.) and she half-heartedly protested just long enough to make sure it sticks. She was actually touched and proud.

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Sometimes I cook these gems to revive happy college years in my memory, reminiscing about all those girls that made my years away from home happier and myself a couple of pounds heavier. Every ounce was worth it, mind you.